116 



Of the fatal malady which preyed upon his spirit, and de- 

 prived society of one of its brightest ornaments, enough is already 

 known to every one here. Severe mental application combined 

 with other causes to produce the aggravated attack of dyspepsia, 

 which, in the mysterious dispensations of Providence, was permit- 

 ted to obtain the mastery over a mind of peculiar sensibility and 

 refinement ; and, on the 24th of October last he concluded his 

 short but bright career. 



The Rev. Robert Trail fell a victim to the fatal dysentery, 

 which he caught from his unceasing and in(jefatigable labours 

 among the poor of the remote parish of Schull, of which he was 

 rector ; a district where the distress of the late disastrous season 

 prevailed to an alarming excess, and where Dr. Trail's energetic 

 exertions will long be remembered with gratitude by all classes of 

 his parishioners. He was removed in the midst of usefulness, with 

 the conviction that, although he perished himself in the attempt, his 

 advice, his labour, and his purse, were, nevertheless, the means of 

 saving the life and health of many of the poor around him. As a 

 member of the world of letters, Dr. Trail was the author of some 

 sermons and controversial works ; but at the time of his death he 

 was engaged in the laborious and elaborate work of translating and 

 editing the works of Josephus, with illustrations of great beauty 

 and elegance, which he had obtained at very great expense, from 

 drawings made expressly for himself in the Holy Land. 



The last on our list of lost members is one who must also be reck- 

 oned among the number of those who have suffered in this country 

 from the effects of the late unparalleled season of disease and misery. 

 Dr. CuRRAN* was a native of the county of Down, having been born 

 near Lisburn in the year 1819. In 1833 he entered the University of 

 Glasgow, and in 1838 he was removed to the University of Dublin, 

 where he took the first degree in medicine in 1843. Besides the 

 laborious studies necessary for his Profession, to which he was de- 

 votedly attached, Dr. Curran found leisure for the successful study 

 of modern languages ; and in the University he was distinguished 



* A memoir of Dr. Curran, to which we are indebted for tlie facts here 

 stated, has appeared in the Dublin Medical Journal. 



